Private party strip: Where the top school set goes now that class is over

When Friday hits, the fresh-faced new recruits of the law and accounting firms of Adelaide have just one destination in mind.

The clock hits 5pm, and with it come the masses – pouring out of law and accounting firms, marketing agencies and real estate empires – with the same destination in mind.

Rundle Street is ready and waiting.

The chairs and tables are set out in the East End awaiting the former private school kids of Adelaide.

Across the city, whether we like it or not, each clique has their own designated venues for their after-work, after-uni, after-pilates fun.

For someone who grew up on the right side of the tracks (hello 5066), East End Cellars is the Burnside Village of the Friday and Saturday night-life scene.

Chairs are promptly filled by young men in beige chinos and RMs, paying for their boutique beers with their hard earned privilege.

Young women wearing AJE dresses that cost more than most people’s rent eagerly eye off the wardrobes of other ladies from rival schools.

Bank Street Social Picture: Supplied

The street is filled to the brim with Adelaide’s future leaders, and they are treated as such.

As chilled bottles of rosé circulate the tables, talk of the day’s work at someone’s dad’s law firm quickly turns to reminiscence of the “good old days” in high school.

Familiar faces walk by, and as they do, each table will quickly, but quietly, exchange the ins and outs of the people they recognise only from the photographs of some flamboyant school formal after-party from 2014.

Adelaide is small, but the private school community (or should I say, the elite private school community) is much smaller.

Saints, PAC, Walford, Wilderness, Pembroke and Seymour – whatever intercol rivalry existed in Year 11 and 12 exists only now in the anecdotes; the testing conversations disguised to determine who really belongs among the elite.

Then, as the sky darkens and the roars of upper-east side gossip grow louder, someone will suggest a change in venue.

Dare they trundle down Rundle and land on the glorious nightclub strip where they spent their first adult years?

Not yet.

Generic images of Rundle St in Adelaide East End. Picture: Supplied

For the ones who’ve moved through the East End, Peel St is next on the agenda – close enough to the clubs, but not quite stooping to that level.

A quick drink stop at Alfred’s or Malt and Juniper is never a bad idea before crossing the road and braving the steep stairs down to Bank Street Social.

Among a slightly more senile crowd, the 20-something power hungry kids may have met their match in the older, entitled businessmen eager to relive their glory days in a basement bar.

The lines both in and out of the bathrooms are long, loud and rarely take the promised “quick minute,” and by 2am, it’s starting to look more like a dive bar than a hip, high class venue.

As the combination of shuddering music and shoving crowds waiting to order a $25 spirit lose their appeal, it’s time to hit the final destination.

Besides, there are rarely rich old men waiting in line at Rocket, and the wealthy younguns have enough money of their own to pay for entry, and perhaps a Vodka Red Bull.

Someone usually knows the DJ, or the door girl, or heck, the owner, and the group walks into their selected club with the wave of an overwhelmed security guard.

Loverboy is the new Super California, which, in the old days, would attract hundreds of the barely legal rich kids each night, donning wildly overpriced outfits with a gold AmEx in their purse.

East End, Adelaide Picture: Supplied

Over time, vodka raspberries made way for vodka lime sodas (the healthier, lower calorie choice) with the already musky club air now regularly filled with the sweet berry scent of disposable vapes.

Along the street, the private school graduates worm their way around the lines outside Woolshed, Black Bull or any other venue they wouldn’t be caught dead in (other than that one night out for their 18th birthday).

Finally, after their feet are blistered and they’ve left a minor dent in their bank accounts, someone’s house will be elected as the appropriate place to continue partying – usually someone who lives within 5km of the city itself.

As the beaming lights of the CBD shrink into glittering specks in the distance, the half drunk, half asleep youths will ask the Uber driver how his night has been, and if he’s been busy – a ritual most people who’ve caught a rideshare after midnight know well.

When they finally get home, they’ll sneak around the back of their pristine houses to avoid waking anyone who might have responsibilities the next day, as the delivery driver carrying their pre-ordered McDonald’s manages to drop off the precious cargo without a noise.

Maybe they’ll tell themselves they won’t be drinking for a while – who knows, maybe they won’t – but none of them can deny, they’ll do it all again next week.

Originally published as Private party strip: Where the top school set goes now that class is over